Archive for Fiction

The Monk

Posted in Observation, Reading with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 25, 2026 by Jarrod Boyle

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Certainly, this is high drama, and skilfully rendered by Mr Lewis. I have not chosen to recount it here for that reason, however. I reproduce it because the breast, probably the only breast Ambrosio has encountered – aside from his mother’s when he was an infant – appears to him as an enigma of overwhelming power.

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The Monk

Posted in Observation, Reading with tags , , , , , , , on February 9, 2026 by Jarrod Boyle

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A very literate friend of mine once described The Monk as the most boring book ever forced upon him by an educational institution. Any book that comes to take up that kind of notoriety is often contingent on timing: my friend was 19 when he encountered The Monk, and it may have become his central focus of regret in signing up to study Gothic literature.

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Black Rabbit

Posted in Film, Netflix, Real Men with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 22, 2026 by Jarrod Boyle

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The golden rule of commercially successful narrative art is that the writer has to push their characters into insoluble situations, and have them find their escape. Those escapes are the watermark of quality.

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J.G. Ballard: Kingdom Come

Posted in Reading, Real Men with tags , , , , , , on June 14, 2025 by Jarrod Boyle

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I thought it was time to pay him a visit and see if he could freak me out like he used to.

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J.G. Ballard: Kingdom Come

Posted in Reading, Real Men with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 5, 2025 by Jarrod Boyle

I love J.G. Ballard.

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The Magic Mountain

Posted in Reading with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 26, 2025 by Jarrod Boyle

The internet is like having a giant bilge pipe mounted above the armchair in your lounge room with all kinds of garbage gushing out of it. There is hardly a moment to take stock and discriminate amongst the torrent of what’s raining down upon you.

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I Dream About You

Posted in Goddess, Love letters, Pornography with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 16, 2024 by Jarrod Boyle

‘…nothing one does in bed is immoral if it helps to perpetuate love.’

Gabriel Garcia Marquez,

Love in the Time of Cholera.

I dreamed that we were on an Italian beach at sunset, sitting on the sand. We watched as night passed over the ocean and climbed the cliff face as the sun withdrew beneath the rim of the world, leaving the heat of the day to radiate from the earth as the echo of its passing.

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